A Brief History of Castles and Knights
by DwaejiTokki
Summary: For those writing a fan fiction of Merlin or any other medieval storyline, this is intended to help you. Includes the layout of an average castle, training of a knight, the knighting ceremony, and knightly duties.


Brief History of Castles and Knights

**Summary**: For those of writing a fan fiction of Merlin or any other medieval storyline, this is intended to help you. Includes the layout of an average castle, training of a knight, the knighting ceremony, and knightly duties.

**Rating**: K, history is for everyone!

**Disclaimer**: How exactly does one own history, anyway?

**Castles**

Now, many of you probably know what one looks like, but this should help you with getting your characters to the places they need to go. I can't exactly include a diagram on this, but I will explain the layout as best I can.

Let's say the walls of the castle are a great big square. Castle walls are approximately six to eight stories high, making them impossible to climb without a ladder or grapple (knights stood at the top of wall and poured hot oil on invaders, and archers shot them down as well). Not to mention that all around the walls is a great big ditch called a moat. This is filled with tons of dangerous stuff. Some of the things you might find in one are: alligators, sewage, oil, and water. Keep in mind that not all castles utilized moats (Camelot, for one) because the presence of moats made it difficult to make tunnels under the castle for escape purposes.

Of course, there has to be a way into the castle, so that's where the drawbridge comes in. This bridge crosses the moat and leads to an iron gate in the wall. The bridge can be raised up and lowered.

Inside the walls is a HUGE courtyard. It can fit hundreds of people, horses, and storefronts (or stalls), and this is where a majority of the business is done. For instance, a blacksmith might set up shop here and sell their work and offer their services for hire.

Along the sides of the walls are the rooms and homes where the peasants live. Keep in mind that the castle is humungous, so there is plenty of space.

At the end of the castle farthest from the gate is the great room, or banquet hall. In times of siege, this is where everyone ate. It's not called the great room for nothing, since it is the biggest room in the entire castle. Next to that room is the keep, or the storeroom, where all the food is kept.

Past this, on top of the castle, are two towers. This is where the royal family lived. The towers, called donjons (the word dungeon was derived from this, but that hardly makes sense to me since dungeons are underground), were the last defense. If the castle was overridden by invaders, the royal family still had a chance of safety in their rooms, since it's nearly impossible to get through the guards on the narrow staircases.

That is the basic layout of castles, but keep in mind that there are hundreds of rooms within that serve almost every purpose. There are servant quarters, medical bays, armories, kitchens, libraries, and kennels for hunting dogs. (Hunting dogs and horses were often treated better than servants, by the way).

**Training of a Knight **

Only the son of a knight or a lord could become a knight. Even if a young man had every skill in the world, but was the son of a peasant, he would be a knight (unless it was through deception). But even so, deception was hard to manage due to the early training and credentials needed.

A knight would not train his own son. He would exchange his son with another knight's, and they would each raise the son to be a good man. They were almost always from another manor, though they were trusted. It sometimes became a hostage situation in which if one knight threatened the life of his ward (the knight-in-training), the boy's father threatened the former's child as well.

At seven years of age, the son of a noble became a page to the man he was to train under. He attended school (taught by women), and learned to read and write, history, maths, and so on. He also learned to play chess and backgammon, which were important to develop strategy. They were servants at banquets, mostly to teach them to be humble. The boys also went hunting-with the ladies, that is. So, by hunting, that meant the pages went ahead of the ladies, who were on horses, and beat the bushes to make the foxes run. And then they watched the foxes run, since ladies never actually "hunted."

At fifteen years old, the young page becomes a squire. Now he actually attends the knight he is training under. He makes sure that the knight has everything he needs: sword, shield, food, etc. He learns to ride a horse and accompanies his knight on hunts, and is subjected to weapons training. If his knight enters a tournament or goes to war, the squire escorts him and provides all his weapons and other things, and cleans them and keeps them sharp. But he never participates in either the war or the tournament.

Finally, at twenty-one years old, the squire graduates to a knight. The day before his twenty-first birthday is the most important day of the young knight's life. This is when the preparation and the ceremony takes place.

On the morning of the day before his birthday, he is given a choice: return to his home manor, where his father is, or stay at the manor where he was raised and trained. The knight who trained him comes bearing gifts: all of the things he would need as a knight. This included a shield, a sword, a horse, a chain mail shirt (knights DID NOT wear those clunky hallways armors; those were for decoration), an iron helmet, a mace, a flail, and anything else a knight had.

Then the preparations began. Back in the medieval days, bathing was very uncommon. In fact, people used to go so far as to say bathing was unhealthy! But, in order to be knighted, the young man had to be "pure," both of body and of mind. So he would bath himself. After that, he still had to purify his mind, so he went to church, where he confessed all of his sins to the friar.

Once that was completed, the knight would go to the fore of the church and lay his sword on the altar. By this time it is approximately ten at night; he'd spent the entire day preparing for this. He kneeled before the altar and begins his prayer, which would continue throughout the night. He would not move from his position. He had to pledge himself to God (think Crusaders).

In the morning, all of the people would file into the church to witness the young knight's ceremony. It is his twenty-first birthday. A man the knight had chosen (could be father, or lord of manor, or lord of other manor, but usually was the knight who trained him) would take the sword from the altar, and while he was still kneeling, lay the flat of the blade on both shoulders. This was called "dubbing a knight," and it completed the knighting ceremony.

As he was dubbed, the man conducting the dubbing would tell him his Duties of a Knight.

**Duties of a Knight **

Fear God.

Always be brave and loyal.

Treat with kindness the women, widows, and orphans.

Defend the weak.

Always be honorable and truthful.

After he was told his duties, the knight would stand and take the "Oath of Chivalry," meaning that he accepted these duties and perform them always. And that was that.

**Quick (fun) Note**

Chivalry comes from the word "cheval," which means horse. This is because to a knight, his horse was his most important possession. He could go nowhere without it, and oftentimes he fought with the horse. Think of the old Western movies where the cowboy saves the damsel, then leaves her there and rides off into the sunset. Chivalry~~


End file.
